About a month into his tenure with Major League Soccer‘s Chicago Fire, Bastian Schweinsteiger said publicly that Zlatan Ibrahimovic, his former teammate at Manchester United, should also make the move to MLS.
“Players like him are certainly very important in a league like MLS,” Schweinsteiger said on April 26th.
“He’s a very professional sportsman and really gives you a lot of quality on the field.”
Ibrahimovic is expected to return late this calendar year or perhaps in early 2018 from a torn ACL in his knee, but word is that he’s ahead of schedule with his rehab. He continues to rehabilitate at United’s training ground, despite the fact that his contract with the club expired in June. Manager Jose Mourinho has made remarks that, if you read in between in lines, imply that the door is open for an Old Trafford return.
As of now, Ibrahimovic remains a free agent, with his name consistently popping up in transfer rumors linking him to MLS. So if Schweinsteiger believes Ibrahimovic should come to MLS, what would be the German midfielder’s recruiting pitch to the Swedish striker?
Why should he cross the pond to play in Major League Soccer?
“I spoke about Thomas Muller could also come and play here,” Schweinsteiger responded to the query on this very topic at the MLS All-Star Game press conference today.
“The goal should be in maybe 10 years for the MLS to be on the same level as the Bundesliga or the English Premier League that would be great. I hope everyone tries to help to increase the level of MLS and also that players like (Christian Pulisic) are here and not in Europe. So that should be the goal in America and I just try to help as much as I can.”
“It’s also great that you have the kind of players like Michael Bradley in America who is helping a lot to increase the level of the league,” said the MLS All-Star team Captain who turns 33 years old today.
“But Zlatan is more than welcome,” Schweinsteiger concluded.
Full audio of the answer is below, starting at the 10:30 mark:
https://soundcloud.com/p-m-banks/bastian-schweinsteiger-veljko-paunovic-and-michael-bradley-mls-all-star-game-press-conference
On Sunday, in media session with a small group of reporters, Fire and USMNT legend Brian McBride said that Zlatan would be “amazing” in MLS.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes regularly to WGN CLTV.
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